Founder interest: Founder interest: the maintainer intends to explore formation of a commercial venture based on some of this work. No entity, outside funding, sponsors, customers, or partner relationships currently exist.
Choose work, not status
Start with a bounded task
Choosing a task or viewing a match does not assess qualifications, establish eligibility, register anyone, contact an organization, authorize a GShips action, or create a relationship. Visitors may independently study or participate under an organizer’s rules; acting on behalf of GShips requires recorded authorization.
Use the three-question path diagnostic · Compare all ten tasks and eight pathways
Leadership is evidence-bearing service
Eight pathways into the work
No pathway makes one person “the leader” of a civilization-scale venture. Leadership means producing artifacts other people can inspect, transferring authority, protecting dissent, including affected communities, and preserving the option to stop. Entry routes recognize students, practitioners, operators, founders, curious learners, and lived expertise without pretending they are interchangeable qualifications.
3 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Connect requirements, hazards, interfaces, evidence, verification, and explicit unknowns without claiming unilateral acceptance authority.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Relevant practice may come from engineering, operations, assurance, maintenance, safety, or equivalent evidence; prestige is not a prerequisite.
- First evidence artifact
- An independently checked evidence-and-requirements graph.
- Decision boundary
- No unilateral technical, safety, or mission acceptance.
- Connected work programs
- Habitat assurance pilot · Commons, standards, and workforce
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Trace one public claim to its source, locator, assumptions, and change condition. | A correction-ready evidence note that another reader can reproduce. |
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| student | Map one requirement, hazard, interface, and test in a public reference scenario. | A reviewed graph with explicit orphan requirements and evidence gaps. |
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| practitioner | Compare the GShips assurance model with one current systems-review workflow. | A bounded gap analysis and independently checked revision. |
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Start learning: Leadership as stewardship · Who is already building the pieces?
3 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Study ecology, food, air, water, microbes, waste, and recovery within declared material, energy, labor, and intervention boundaries.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Relevant evidence can come from microbiology, agriculture, water, waste, ecology, ECLSS, laboratory practice, or operations.
- First evidence artifact
- A test protocol and negative-result record.
- Decision boundary
- Stop ecological claims outside the demonstrated boundary and never treat closure percentage as autonomy.
- Connected work programs
- Closed-loop material accounting
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Follow one element through a public closed-loop system and record every known loss. | A bounded material ledger with sources and unknowns. |
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| student | Reproduce one published result or mass balance without extending its scope. | A replication note with uncertainty and transfer limits. |
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| operator | Document one real intervention, maintenance burden, or ecological recovery case. | An anonymized failure-and-recovery record with participant and data protections. |
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Start learning: Follow carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus · How closed ecologies fail and recover
3 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Make maintenance, manufacturing, metrology, logistics, feedstock, power, software, and human skill one auditable recovery system.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Machinists, maintainers, manufacturing engineers, supply-chain practitioners, technicians, and operators hold relevant expertise alongside researchers.
- First evidence artifact
- A repairable-component test with feedstock, metrology, spares, and recovery criteria.
- Decision boundary
- No claim that a factory can reproduce itself without a complete dependency and acceptance record.
- Connected work programs
- Autonomous maintenance and circular industry · Long-life power, propulsion, and thermal balance
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Choose one ordinary device and map what repairs the repair tools. | A dependency tree that includes metrology, calibration, software, and feedstock. |
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| student | Build a repair-depth and spares model for a public or synthetic component. | A reproducible scenario with failure and cannibalization limits. |
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| operator | Record a bounded maintenance bottleneck and its real workaround. | A measured workflow baseline and safer proposed test. |
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Start learning: Maintenance as metabolism · Manufacturing is a stack, not a printer
3 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Preserve trustworthy software, procedures, archives, keys, and recovery while excluding offensive use and life-critical AI authority.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Defensive security, safety, OT, software assurance, archival practice, and operations are relevant; offensive capability is out of scope.
- First evidence artifact
- A bounded threat model and rehearsed recovery record.
- Decision boundary
- Independent cyber stop-work; no offensive scope and no generative model with direct authority.
- Connected work programs
- Disconnected cyber recovery
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Verify whether one critical procedure remains usable offline and without an LLM. | A documented gap or reproducible offline copy with provenance. |
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| student | Threat-model a synthetic disconnected habitat using only civil and defensive scenarios. | A bounded model with prohibited paths and recovery objectives. |
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| practitioner | Rehearse restore, revocation, and anti-rollback against a synthetic incident. | Recovery evidence reviewed independently from implementation. |
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Start learning: Incident response without Earth · The Knowledge Ark
4 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Join health, development, reproduction, disability access, privacy, clinical independence, and human factors without coercive mission optimization.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Clinical credentials matter for clinical claims; lived disability and affected-community expertise are independently necessary and must not be treated as decoration.
- First evidence artifact
- A rights-preserving assurance case with an AI-off path.
- Decision boundary
- Independent confidentiality, participant protection, and stop-work authority.
- Connected work programs
- Accessible human habitat · Radiation and life-course health
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Audit one public workflow for privacy, accessibility, refusal, and escalation. | A barrier and rights checklist reviewed by affected people. |
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| affected community | Define the scope, compensation, access needs, and decision authority required for a meaningful review. | A participant-led review agreement rather than symbolic consultation. |
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| practitioner | Review one high-consequence claim within a named clinical, public-health, disability, or rights scope. | A record-level disposition with exact evidence and conflicts. |
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Start learning: Autonomous medicine and public health · Universal design across a lifespan
4 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Bound propulsion, power, radiation, destination, astrobiology, probes, and planetary protection through evidence that preserves wait and non-settlement outcomes.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Relevant work spans astronomy, astrobiology, propulsion, power, thermal, materials, radiation, navigation, and mission analysis.
- First evidence artifact
- An auditable trade with mass, energy, heat, braking, uncertainty, and planetary-protection limits.
- Decision boundary
- No mission-readiness inference from a model, laboratory effect, component, or small robotic payload.
- Connected work programs
- Radiation and life-course health · Long-life power, propulsion, and thermal balance · Robotic destination characterization
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Reproduce one distance, speed, energy, or braking estimate with declared units and omissions. | A checked calculation that distinguishes mathematics from forecast. |
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| student | Compare one robotic precursor with a crewed assumption using the same decision dimensions. | A source-linked trade that includes contamination and do-not-launch outcomes. |
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| practitioner | Falsify one bounded propulsion, radiation, or destination claim. | A reviewed correction, counterexample, or narrowed readiness boundary. |
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Start learning: Reference missions and honest comparisons · Alternatives and the overtaking problem
4 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Build legitimate, amendable, appealable institutions that protect dissent, childhood, reproduction, disability, labor, privacy, and do-not-launch authority.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Law, ethics, labor, disability, child rights, reproductive justice, cooperative governance, community organizing, and lived experience are all relevant and non-interchangeable.
- First evidence artifact
- An appealable noncompensatory decision gate.
- Decision boundary
- No founder, company, employer, or vendor may control evidence, essential services, citizenship, and appeal.
- Connected work programs
- Rights, governance, and decision gates
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Identify who gains and loses authority in one habitat scenario. | A stakeholder and remedy map that includes future people and dissent. |
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| affected community | Define a noncompensatory veto, appeal route, and participation condition. | An affected-public requirement with real stop authority. |
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| practitioner | Draft one expiring decision gate with authority, evidence, recusals, and minority findings. | A public decision dossier reviewed across law, rights, and affected interests. |
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Start learning: Who has authority in space? · Launch, wait, or do not launch
3 capability areas · 3 entry routes
Create present value, shared infrastructure, succession, review, funding boundaries, and stop capacity without making the founder or company the mission.
- Prerequisite boundary
- Leadership fitness is demonstrated through useful bounded work, correction, shared authority, succession, and public accountability—not title or charisma.
- First evidence artifact
- A public-benefit task charter with measures, conflicts, review, and a kill gate.
- Decision boundary
- Cannot override editorial, rights, safety, clinical, accessibility, cyber, or dual-use review.
- Connected work programs
- Habitat assurance pilot · Commons, standards, and workforce
Entry routes and proof of progress
Different starting points; no credential hierarchy implied| Starting point | First action | Evidence of progress |
|---|
| curious | Contribute one correction, source, accessible explanation, or bounded volunteer artifact. | A useful accepted contribution or documented negative result. |
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| operator | Name one neglected present-day coordination or assurance problem and its current workaround. | A measured problem statement with a real beneficiary and kill gate. |
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| founder | Separate public evidence, commercial discovery, external authorization, conflicts, and stop authority before outreach. | A bounded product test and institution that can continue safely during founder absence. |
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Start learning: Leadership as stewardship · Products before starships
Initial product thesis
Autonomous Habitat Assurance — Make closed, remote, safety-critical habitats easier to understand, test, maintain, and recover—especially when experts, resupply, or communications are unavailable.
- A versioned requirements and evidence graph connecting hazards, functions, components, interfaces, tests, suppliers, and claims.
- A scenario registry that exposes assumptions and records cross-domain fault cases before physical testing.
- Maintenance, spares, cannibalization, feedstock, and repair-depth planning.
Assurance boundary
- Classify assets and data, define trust zones, and document every import and export path before handling operational information.
- Define signing authority, key custody, revocation, expiry, anti-rollback, source authorization, and tenant separation; integrity is not the same as approval.
- Declare each model’s use, configuration, validity envelope, uncertainty, and independent verification oracle.
- Model spares uncertainty, correlated failures, configuration state, cannibalization dependencies, and censored reliability data.
- Version zero has no actuation adapter and cannot issue a command to an operational system.
30 / 90 / 365 days
Every outreach, event, submission, registration, sponsorship, incorporation, hiring, contract, and partner-facing roadmap item is proposed and not undertaken; each requires separate owner authorization and any applicable acceptance, budget, legal, travel, safety, or export-control review.
30 days
- Publish a one-page personal mission statement that names the uncertainty and rejects inevitability.
- Read the core worldship, life-support, systems, ethics, health, AI, and cyber sources in the Academy.
- Join IRG, i4is, BIS, and INCOSE; volunteer for one bounded task instead of asking for status.
- Submit the European Interstellar Symposium abstract before July 31, 2026.
- Schedule ten listening conversations and ask which useful coordination problem is currently neglected.
- Create a conflicts register, evidence policy, dual-use boundary, and correction process.
90 days
- Complete twenty-five listening interviews across science, operations, public interest, and potential customers.
- Recruit six to ten compensated advisors with published scopes and conflicts.
- Host a small working session on a Generation Ship Technology Commons and publish the disagreements.
- Prototype one cross-domain assurance workflow using public life-support, power, maintenance, and incident data.
- Select two non-dilutive opportunities based on fit, not award size.
- Visit or arrange a user-facility conversation with Biosphere 2, BioServe, Guelph, NASA, NIST, or a DOE lab.
365 days
- Complete one hundred structured stakeholder interviews and publish an anonymized problem map.
- Earn three design partners, two paid pilots, and one research collaboration.
- Publish Reference Architecture 0.1, an annual impact and safety report, and a red-team response log.
- Demonstrate the assurance prototype against at least twenty multi-domain fault scenarios.
- Make a company/no-company decision based on customer pull; keep GShips as a public project if a venture is not justified.
- If incorporating, use a public-benefit charter and grant independent safety/cyber authority stop-work power.
30 / 90 / 365 diagnostic
Use evidence, not founder confidence. A high total cannot compensate for a failed rights, clinical, safety, security, or legitimacy gate.
Day 30
- Can the product be explained without a generation-ship market?
- Is one user, costly job, current workaround, measure, and kill gate explicit?
- Do material claims expose evidence, conflict, review status, and what would change them?
- Can another person recover the current project state without the founder?
Score each 0: no evidence, 1: partial, 2: demonstrated. Advance only with at least 6 of 8 points and no failed rights, safety, security, or external-action gate.
Day 90
- Did approved interviews converge on one operator problem?
- Can users reproduce every safety-relevant result without an LLM?
- Does a public or synthetic prototype improve an agreed workflow measure?
- Are data, security, dual-use, review, and external-action boundaries operational?
Score each 0: no evidence, 1: partial, 2: demonstrated. Advance only with at least 6 of 8 points and no failed rights, safety, security, or external-action gate.
Day 365
- Did a paid bounded pilot improve recovery or assurance against baseline?
- Can a second pilot run without founder-led reinvention?
- Has independent review changed a conclusion and has a negative result been published?
- Can product, evidence, governance, and recovery continue through founder absence?
Score each 0: no evidence, 1: partial, 2: demonstrated. Advance only with at least 6 of 8 points and no failed rights, safety, security, or external-action gate.
Public-benefit commitments
Evidence before spectacle
No major claim may be represented as reviewed unless it exposes its basis, readiness target, confidence, assumptions, claim-specific citations and locators, review date, reviewer conflicts, and what would change the conclusion.
Earth first
Every commercial workstream must create credible terrestrial or near-space value before relying on an interstellar market.
Rights are requirements
Reproductive autonomy, disability access, clinical independence, due process, privacy, education, dissent, and constitutional revision are top-level system requirements.
Build options, not destiny
Robotic exploration, Solar System habitats, waiting, and not going remain first-class alternatives at every decision gate.
Publish failure
Negative results, incidents, model limitations, conflicts, and corrected claims are treated as valuable program outputs.
No purchased truth
Sponsors, investors, customers, and indexed organizations cannot buy favorable rankings, evidence labels, or editorial conclusions.
Civil and defensive boundary
The project may support safety, resilience, logistics, communications, and cyber defense. It excludes target identification or engagement, weapons command-and-control, offensive access or destructive payloads, mass surveillance or biometric repression, autonomous force, and coercive reproductive, medical, genetic, or civic control. Before any relevant work begins, GShips must establish customer and end-use screening, contract restrictions, export and sanctions review, recusals, independent stop-work authority, escalation, termination, incident response, and appeal; the founder may not waive the boundary alone.
Institution over founder
Leadership succession, independent review, stop-work authority, and transparent governance matter more than founder charisma.
Policies that must become institutions
No screening body, independent stop-work authority, contractual controls, or appeal body currently exists. Therefore no relevant customer, defense, dual-use, or operational engagement is authorized by this policy.
No independent domain reviewer or review council is currently appointed. Foundation records and outlines may not be represented as independently reviewed.
Founder strategy is a working public alpha; no incorporation, outreach, submission, or partner action undertaken · Owner-alpha foundation · Independent review pending · Suggest a correction
